Labour returns to economy

Friday, 29 April 2005 12:00 AM

After a day of focus on Iraq, Labour has attempted to return to its key campaign message of economic stability.

Early this morning Tony Blair and Gordon Brown jointly unveiled Labour's latest campaign poster on the theme 'forwards not back'.

It shows a red forward arrow with the caption 'Forward with Blair and Brown' and a blue backwards arrow reading 'Back with Howard and Letwin'.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are campaigning across the country today, claiming that Labour is the only party that is serious on the economy.

Labour has also launched a booklet, which it says shows the economic improvements under Labour in each constituency. And the party has promised to up the campaigning on the economy in the last few days of the campaign - and 'expose' what a vote for the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats would mean.

Mr Blair is expected to describe both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat's policies as incoherent, and claim that a vote for the Lib Dems could put Mr Howard in Downing Street.

Mr Blair is expected to tell an event in Wales later today: "With Labour, the country knows what it's getting: the lowest unemployment for 29 years; the lowest mortgage rates for 40 years; the longest sustained period of economic growth for 200 years.

"The Conservatives plan to spend more, tax less and borrow less, all at the same time. That's why economic instability isn't just a risk under the Tories, its a cast iron guarantee.

"Take a gamble on the Conservative economic plan next Thursday and it's your job, your mortgage, your pay, your pension, your living standards, your savings all at stake."

Later, he is expected to say that the Lib Dems are regressive on the economy, opportunistic on the environment and dangerous on crime.

Speaking in Wales earlier, the Chancellor said that Labour had delivered for Britain and had lower unemployment than "all out major competitors".

Attacking Mr Howard's record in government, he said the Conservative leader was the Pensions Minister for pensions misselling, he was Local Government Minister for the introduction of the Poll Tax, he saw crime double as Home Secretary, and with Mr Howard as Employment Minister, unemployment went above two million.

Saying he believed that most people valued what Labour had brought to the economy, Mr Brown demanded that the majority were not "a stay at home majority", but a "voting majority."

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